Third Party Cookies

[chandrika]

The thread abot firefox extensions got me thinking about my affiliate links i place and how much trust i should put in the fact that sales made via them are being tracked.

As was pointed out in th ethread abot firefox extensions, essentially end users have the right to choose what they see on their compters and the softwares like norton and mccafe are essentially good and about keeping pcs safe from malware. So they dont have a problem, but affiliates do.

If the default settings interfere with things like placing third party cookies, then isnt the whole affiliate marketing system rendered useless?

Does anyone know whether there are any affiliate tracking methods that get around the code stripping techniques of the nortons etc?

What about shareasale, affiliatewindow, those type of links, are those sales all tracked or are the ones made by the millions with norton and mccafe on default settings all blocked?

[ziffgone]

Hi chandrika,

If the default settings interfere with things like placing third party cookies, then isn't the whole affiliate marketing system rendered useless?

Did you not know the Web Browser Internet Explorer already blocks Third Party Cookies with it's default Security Settings?

First things first though, let's understand what a "Third Party Cookie" is.

A Third Party Cookie is a cookie set by a web site that is not the current "Top Level Domain" being viewed. To understand this, let's say you visit http://www.abc.com, meanwhile, the Webmaster of ABC.com is Affiliated with DEF.com and on the web page he/she shows a Frame that shows an Ad for DEF.com. Through this Frame, DEF.com sets Affiliate Cookies for the webmaster of ABC.com in order to give them the commission should the visitor click this ad and purchase whatever.

Now, in this instance, ABC.com is the "Top Level Domain" as it's domain name is the one currently showing in the Browser's Address Bar. DEF.com is second level as it's being shown in a Frame.

When DEF.com tries to set cookies, Internet Explorer and the mentioned Security Softwares like Norton and McAfee block it as potentially hazardous, UNLESS...the web site in question has a Compact Privacy Policy in place.

However, for most Affiliate Programs, your affiliate link either goes directly to the Merchant's site or redirects through an Affiliate management site, like ClickBank, CJ and others. When the site, whether the Merchant's site or the Redirection site sets your affiliate cookies, they are currently the Top Level Domain, meaning the cookies being set are considered First Party Cookies. Therefore, you need not worry about your cookies being blocked due to being Third Party.

If, by chance, you wish to Cloak your links through Frames, you may wish to contact the Affiliate Program manager and see if they have a Compact Privacy Policy in place. This policy is a simple header sent to the browser telling it what the cookie is for and what information that cookie may be holding.

This allows the browser to determine if it's a safe cookie, and if so, it allows it.

An alternative, if your looking to cloak your links, is to use an affiliate link cloaking specifically designed to address this kind of thing. See my signature.

Hope that sheds some light on the subject.

Regards...

[chandrika]

Yes thanks very much, I wasnt very clear how it all worked and was worried that alot of links i might place wouldnt be tracked, but I have checked with shareasale and they have this privacy policy and anyway most of my links are going from the top level domain so I guess it is ok.

Thanks for explaining it to me

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Chandrika.

I write about things like this so affiliates are aware and can try to work around obstacles, not so they give up.

Every business has obstacles. If you were a farmer, you would suffer a certain % of revenue loss each year due to floods, frost, insects (parasites) etc. But if you learn all you can about the problems you can sometimes do things to minimize your loss.

SAS and other smaller networks are not blocked by many ad blockers at the host file level, but some ads still could get blocked just based on the banner size if they are standard sizes. There are things you can do to try to work around this like dont show the banner size in your source code or make the banner one pixel bigger in each dimension. Some people do use security settings that block all 3rd party cookies. In-house affiliate programs that use their own software instead of 3rd part tracking would not be affected by this.

So there are things to be aware of and things you can do. But this like anything else is a numbers game. Market smarter and work harder and your income will increase, even if a small % of your revenue is blocked.

[chandrika]

Hi
yes it was useful information, i was glad to hear about it and like you say, it is something that affiliates should know so that they can work around it.

Thanks :)